Longhorns win despite board woes

North Texas owned the boards, but the Texas basketball team pulled away from the Mean Green in the second half to win 73-57 last night in Austin, Texas.

The Mean Green outrebounded Texas 46-30, the second time in six games this season that the Longhorns lost the battle of the boards.

“They really beat us on every one of those 50-50 balls,” Texas Coach Rick Barnes said. “We got the shots we wanted and got our hands on the ball. Then our post guys would lose the balls out of bounds.”

North Texas (1-4) had 22 offensive rebounds, one more than the Longhorns had on defense, thanks in part to its own poor shooting (19 for 62).

“Unfortunately, we shot 30 percent from the field, so we had a lot of opportunities to get some offensive rebounds,” Mean Green Coach Johnny Jones said.

The Mean Green were without blue-chip recruit Tony Mitchell, who played for the United States at the under-19 world championships in Latvia this summer. Mitchell committed to Missouri when he graduated from high school in 2010 but was never ruled academically eligible by the NCAA.

Mitchell enrolled at North Texas in January and will not be able to play until Dec. 18 against Jackson State at the earliest.

The Bears, after falling behind 11-2, never trailed after Pierre Jackson’s bounce pass to Jones for a one-handed dunk that made it 17-16 midway through the first half. That was part of 16 consecutive points by Baylor in a 4-minute spurt when Jones scored nine points.

Jones, the 6-foot-11 forward who was the preseason Big 12 player of the year, had to sit out five games to complete an NCAA suspension for accepting improper benefits before he got to Baylor.